Soros: Google and Facebook threaten democracy and Trump will not complete his first term

28-01-2018 01:20 PM

Baghdad News -

George Soros, the billionaire and global investment giant, Facebook and Google, has criticized the world's two largest technology companies as "a threat to democracy."

In a speech at his annual dinner on the sidelines of the Davos Economic Forum, he said social media were "obstacles to creativity."

He cautioned against the ability of such companiesto shape people's concerns, but predicted that they would not withstand long-term prosecutions that are likely to be exposed to them using tax systems and regulations.

Soros described Trump's management as "dangerous" to the world. Trump is expected to leave the Oval Office by 2020 or shortly before.

Lost freedom

Soros, a well-known speaker with his superior ability to invest in the financial markets, drew his strongest criticism of Internet giants, describing these institutions as having "unprecedented impact and great ability to change."

"These companies hold the people's concerns and shape them as they like," he said, echoing the name Google and Facebook several times over the course of his speech last Thursday.

"It takes a lot of effort to emphasize John Stewart Mill's concept of freedom of reason, and further effort to defend this concept," he said. "Once we lose this concept, those raised in the digital age will have a very difficult time recovering it."

He also warned of the 'wide-ranging' political impact of the Internet, likely playing a major role in the US presidential election that came to the White House.

Soros praised the role played by the European Commission's president, Margaret Wistiger, as an "enemy" of social networking companies, the European official known for pursuing global technology companies, which has resulted in imposing a huge additional cost on Google, Amazon and Apple.

"The European Union does not have giant Internet companies, so it is the perfect place to protect society from these companies," he said. "But he described the US system as weak because of its complacency with those companies because they are American companies.

He pointed out that these companies do not have the 'determination, nor the bias to protect society from the consequences of its actions.'

Communities in crisis

Soros, a Hungarian-born and a manager of large investment funds and known for billions in gains after exploiting the devaluation of the British pound in 1992, heads a number of associations that say they "protect open societies from their enemies."

Soros, a Holocaust survivor, opened his speech by acknowledging that he had discovered that the moment was "very painful."

"The open societies are in crisis, and there is a strong demonstration of dictatorships and gangs that govern some countries right now," Putin said. "A good example of this is President Putin in Russia."

He also predicted that Trump, who he described earlier as 'on his way to becoming a dictator', would not remain in office until the end of his term. "I expect a landslide in 2018," he said.